Well, here's a little bit of background info on why sugar is so bad. I'm going to give you the ultra short version, because frankly, some of you might find all the scientific stuff a little boring (me included!)
For the full story I highly recommend reading David Gillespie's book 'Sweet Poison'.
There are various types of sugar in foods we consume. These include fructose, glucose and lactose.
In short, the bad guy here is fructose.
Table sugar, or sucrose, is made up of half fructose and half glucose.
We can eat fructose until the cows come home and our bodies simply don't recognise that we are full. All other foods, aside from fructose, have a corresponding hormone that makes us feel full when we've had enough to eat.
Ever wondered why we can eat row after row of a block of chocolate?
Now, not only does fructose make our bodies struggle to recognise when we are full, but it's converted straight to fat. Yep, no opportunity to burn this stuff off. Useless food you might call it. Or, as our mothers might say 'a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips'!
So, how do we know how much sugar is in the foods we eat and what type of sugar it is that we are consuming? Well, a good start is to get into the habit of checking out the nutritional table on the back of products in the supermarket aisle. Take tomato sauce for instance. Look on the back of the bottle and under 'sugar' you'll see around 25g or so per 100g. That's around 1/4 sugar content! And BBQ sauce is double that!
What you really want to aim for is less than 3g of sugar per 100g. And with dairy you can look for less than 8g per 100g (that's because 5g of that is lactose, not fructose).
A really good tip is to start getting the whole 'low fat' thing out of your head. More often than not, low fat means high sugar! I know, I know. I was brought up thinking low fat was best too. But you know what? It's actually not fat that makes us fat, it's sugar! Now I'm not saying go out and eat saturated fats to your hearts content, we're talking good fats here. Full fat dairy, avocado, nuts, good oils - this is all good stuff guys!
Try replacing biscuits and fruit for cheese, nuts and milk. Full fat products fill you up and help satisfy those sweet cravings.
Now, even if you're not wanting to drop a few kilos, cutting out sugar has loads of other health benefits too.
Personally I have found that I am less bloated and I am actually craving more good, healthy foods (perhaps a coincidence?) Along with this, kicking the sugar habit can help to stabilise moods, avoid those energy highs and then crashing lows, decrease inflammation, lower your diabetes risk, and keep your teeth healthy and filling-free.
So, there you have it.
Now, it's not as bad as what you'd think, trust me. If anyone was going to struggle with cutting out the sweet stuff you're looking at her! You might find the first few days are a bit hard but after that, as long as you are adding in lots of good, fresh food and healthy fats you should find it gets easier.
More on how my quitting sugar journey is going soon.
What's your thoughts on quitting sugar? Have you tried it yourself?
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